Tag Archives: tortoise pose

aaaah, I have been doing advanced class on a pretty regular basis for over a month now and I am in love with the practice again. Over the past almost 9 years (my first advanced class was in July 2003, right after I graduated TT) I’ve gone through times of extreme advanced class practice as well as not practicing for months at a time. I’ve been to six (I think) advanced seminars and have done class countless times with Emmy at HQ, as well as many other teachers who have been around a while and have so much knowledge at this practice and have taught me sooo much. Since I’ve been (mostly) home (in Victoria) over the past couple months I’ve been leading the advanced series a couple times/week at the Saanich studio. Some days we have three of us and some days we have 8 or 10 of us practicing. Turns out, any amount is good!

So, I know that there is no secret to anything, that the more you do something, the better you get at it. They didn’t make that bumper sticker that says, “practice makes perfect” for nothing!! I know that there are certain postures in the advanced series that I don’t give a fair chance or enough time. I know that I’ve had so many breakthroughs in advanced class (and my whole practice) that I understand that I can do anything if I just put my mind and body to it. So, at this point in my practice, almost 12 years in, at 38 years old, I don’t really push myself too too hard to do all the crazy funky amazing things that all those young kids are doing these days, but I do enjoy my yoga practice and I love feeling the different parts of my body complaining to me after I do a bunch of leg breaking and tortoise or practice my arm balancing a lot. So, in the past 6 weeks, practicing every day and doing advanced class twice/week, I’ve actually started to notice some things changing and some postures that I’ve not been able to do I’m actually seeing PROGRESSION!!! WOWEEEEEE, HOW AMAZING!

The other day I got my heels up off the floor in Tortoise pose. I always knew I COULD do it I just didn’t understand HOW to do it. Then I did.

Today in class I did Peacock pose and felt the balance for the first time. I also held One Arm Peacock longer than I ever have because I realised more how I need to charge forward to get the balance. I knew it to be true in Peacock and finally realised it in One Arm Peacock.

Today I also did Tiger pose. Now, I’ve done it before, so I KNOW I CAN do it, I just am not able to do it on a regular basis with any confidence and then suddenly today it was like the balance just happened. whew. Once. It happened once. But that means it will happen again 😉

And, lastly, but certainly not leastly (is that a word?)…my HANDSTANDS are FINALLY coming along. Again, I am not a dedicated handstand girl, I’m not always busting out a handstand here and there, so it’s not like I am surprised why I still can’t do Scorpion pose! However, each time I do a handstand now I can hold it longer and longer and longer. It’s truly unbelievable to me.

So……..the moral of this post? haha, KEEP TRYING AND NEVER GIVE UP!! Haha, they should make a bumper sticker of THAT!!